Minnie
Jane Hullsiek - WHAT HAPPENED TO MINNIE? 😒
Minnie was “rescued” by Jane Hullsiek, the director of Humane Society of the Dunes, an organization in Chesterton, Indiana (NWI). Minnie was originally at Indianapolis Animal Care Services and IACS Shelter Rescue Team before Jane took her on February 8, 2020.
Minnie was “rescue only” at the Indy shelter because she was very fearful with people she didn’t know, although she was sweet and loving with people she was used to. IACS had posted a darling photo of Minnie sleeping on someone’s lap at the shelter.
The same day Jane took Minnie, she posted three photos of Minnie that are clearly in her home. The distinctive blanket, wood accents, and spotted rug are shown in many of the photos of animals Jane posted, even though when IACS inspected her premises in early 2023, she lied and said that none of the rescue animals entered her home. Which IACS certainly should have realized was not true, given Jane’s comment on one of IACS’ posts about Minnie that Minnie slept in her bed the first night she was there (in addition to all the “update” photos of various animals that Jane sent with the same decor in the background….).
One of the same three photos of Minnie was posted by IACS Rescue the same day as a “freedom ride” photo, showing proof she had left the Indy shelter. Indy’s Voice 4 Animals had pledged money for Minnie when she had a euthanasia deadline at IACS. When Indy’s Voice 4 Animals pledged on euthanasia-listed dogs, it was typically with the stipulation that the pledge be paid directly to the rescue’s vet which was likely the case here, although we aren’t sure that Minnie would’ve required $500 in vet care (the amount IV4A pledged) plus the additional $785 in pledges from other donors. She was rescue only for being fearful, not for medical issues. Indy’s Voice 4 Animals posted two photos of Minnie, one from her time at IACS and one supplied by Jane, from the same photo series of Minnie on the bed in Jane’s home. In the post, it stated Minnie was doing well in her foster home, which again, was just Jane Hullsiek. There is no publicly available evidence that Minnie was ever in any foster home other than Jane’s.
Jane never shared anything else about Minnie from the Humane Society of the Dunes Facebook page. Just those three photos the day she arrived at her home, then nothing ever again.
Five months later, in July 2020, Jane updated her webpage to add photos of “rescues”. Minnie’s photo was included, the same one from February, with the caption, “Millie was a rescue the Humane Society of the Dunes took from Indianapolis, Indiana.” Whether Jane fostered her or not, it seems a bit strange that so often the only photos Jane could supply for the majority of the IACS animals were photos that she herself had taken in her own home within a day or two of rescuing the animals. She didn’t have any more recent photos of Minnie to use for the website? She listed her as “Millie”?
Jane did the same thing with another IACS dog named Kenzi, who she’d rescued in January 2020. She only posted one time about Kenzi on the Humane Society of the Dunes Facebook page, then never again. But 7 months later she uploaded a 7 month old photo of Kenzi to the webpage, which she had taken in her pole barn, but it was labeled “Sophie”.
So, are Millie and Sophie the names their adopters gave them? It’d be great to see a recent photo of these dogs instead of photos that were already posted when they had just left the Indy shelter. .
If you know where any of the 110+ animals that Jane took from IACS are, please reach out. Minnie is #111 that we’ve posted, and there are more left to post. It’s so weird how we have only tentatively found three of these animals’ whereabouts:
- Mr. Handsome, adopted by a relative of someone who worked at the vet Jane uses - provided proof to us
- Dorothy, adopted by Jane’s neighbor - another neighbor recognized her and we have enough proof without talking to the adopter
- Topaz, adopted by Jane’s sister, who would not provide proof
Did Jane only adopt IACS animals to people she knew? Seems that way, since she never posted any of the IACS animals for adoption anywhere online.
Please share Minnie’s post so we can attempt to verify that she ever left Jane Hullsiek’s home and got adopted, and that she is OK. She’d be about 12 years old now. There is $200 available for proof of Minnie’s current whereabouts and answering some questions: $100 from this page’s admins and $100 from a generous supporter.
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